PROCEEDINGS OF THE 20TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2017
San Diego, California
Do students really know what a function is?: Applying APOS analysis to student small group presentations
Page: 1195
One of the fundamental concepts in mathematics is that of a function. This concept also appearsto be a difficult concept to grasp for a large percentage of students. In order to assess the overallunderstanding of the concept of a function, we conducted an experiment with math majors at ouruniversity. In an upper division math problem solving course, the students were asked specificquestions about the nature of functions. Students presented their understandings of function ingroups of 2-3, which were recorded and then transcribed. Based on the IBL teachingmethodology and the small group and classroom discussion data collected we have applied asociocultural framework. The innovation we add is applying APOS, an individually orientedtheory, to the collective level. Analyzing the video transcripts, we will discuss the overall trendsin understanding as well as some of the common misconceptions that we have identified.Keywords: